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Martha's
Vineyard Hospital Nurses Appeal to Community for Support As
Contract Talks Stall Over Issues of Salary, Mandatory Call
and Numerous Concessions in Benefits Sought by Management
Hospital CEO Threatens to Push Nurses to Strike
Nurses Respond with Vote to Leaflet, Picket, Seek Meeting With Trustees
The registered nurses of Martha's Vineyard Hospital, who are currently
attempting to negotiate a new contract with hospital management,
voted unanimously yesterday to take their case to the public for
support on a number issues the nurses believe will have an impact
on the ability of MVH to maintain a quality nursing staff at the
facility. As part of their effort, the nurses plan to leaflet this
Saturday's high school football game between Martha's Vineyard High
School and Nantucket High School, as well as at other high traffic
locations on the island. The nurses will also seek an opportunity
to meet with the hospital's Board of Trustees to make their case
and informational picketing outside the hospital will also be scheduled
if progress on the contract is not made.
Nurse and management began negotiating the contract on Oct. 12, 2001.
To date, four negotiating sessions have been held, with the next
session scheduled for Nov. 20, 2001 before a federal mediator. The
contract expired on Sep. 22, 2001 but was extended for another 30
days by agreement of both parties. A request to extend the contract
for another month was rejected by MVH CEO Kevin Burchill, who has
taken a hard-line stance in the negotiations, which is the key reason
the talks have stalled.
The key issues driving the dispute include divergent salary proposals,
the hospital's refusal to un-freeze the nurses' long-established
stepped salary scale, and the hospital's demand to force nurses to
go home and receive on-call pay in lieu of working their regular
shift at full pay. Burchill is also demanding that the nurses make
at least 50 concessions in their contract, impacting nearly every
benefit and right the nurses have won through more than 25 years
of collective bargaining representation by the Massachusetts Nurses
Association. Last week, Burchill took the nurses' contract dispute
into the public arena, voicing his desire to push the nurses into
a strike to win the concessions he seeks.
At the last negotiating session, Burchill waved a retainer check
in the faces of the nurses' negotiating team, a check to secure the
services of U.S. Nursing Corps. of Denver, CO, high-priced temporary
nurses' agency that specializes in providing strike breaking nurses
to hospitals during a walk out. The agency charges its clients exorbitant
fees, including salaries of $40 an hour for its nurses, plus room
and board and all travel expenses.
According to Rick Lambos, an emergency department nurse and chair
of the nurses' bargaining unit, the nurses were surprised at the
tactic, given that the nurses hadn't even raised the issue of a potential
strike. They were further surprised that Mr. Burchill chose to go
the media last week to boast of his resolve to force a strike if
necessary.
"Our goal is always to negotiate in good faith towards a settlement. But it appears
Mr. Burchill would rather dictate than negotiate. We were appalled by Mr. Burchill's
unprofessional and threatening tactics and we are equally appalled that he chose
to drag this issue into the public arena so prematurely," said Lambos. "It is
important that the public be informed of all the issues in the process, and to
understand the impact on nursing at Martha's Vineyard Hospital, and on their
care, if hospital management continues to refuse to negotiate in good faith towards
a fair settlement and insists on pushing the nurses' backs to the wall."
Lambos points out that the positions taken by management at the hospital
will have a dramatic impact on the facility's ability to recruit
and retain nurses needed to provide safe care to the patients served
by the island's only acute care hospital.
"Hospital management must have forgotten that there is a national nursing shortage," Lambos
explained. "Registered nurses looking for jobs in today's market have a distinct
advantage to pick and choose and they will go where the best working conditions,
salary and benefits are provided. The high cost of living, housing problems and
the fact that we are on an island have all been major deterrents to attracting
and retaining a professional staff. Here at MVH, we currently have long-standing
vacancies that have not been permanently filled. No nurse would move to our island
and work in this hospital if they were not guaranteed a competitive salary, decent
benefits and a guaranteed shift, hours of work and income. Mr. Burchill's positions
in this negotiation are a recipe for the total destruction of the nursing program
at our hospital."
Below is a summary of each of the major issues in dispute.
Salary/Stepped Salary Scale
The most important sticking point is the hospital's refusal to address
the nurses' concerns over their salary scale. For more than 25 years,
the nurses, similar to most unionized nurses in the state, have had
a contractually guaranteed system of stepped wage increases for nurses.
The system sets levels of pay for nurses from 1 – 15 years
of service. For each year of service, nurses receive approximately
a 3.5% pay increase in their pay. The "step system" has become a
standard component of nurses' collective bargaining contracts in
the health care industry. In 1996, when MVH was threatened with bankruptcy,
the RNs agreed to a 3-year freeze of the salary scale. This was done
to assist the hospital out of its financial dilemma.
Mr. Burchill, is refusing to lift the freeze on the salary scale
as promised in the last contract, and instead wants to move the nurses
to a "merit-based" clinical ladder that would award salary increases
based on evaluations by management. The MNA and the hospital had
set up a committee to consider the clinical ladder concept in June
2001. The ladder system is only in the conceptual stage and is not
considered a viable proposal for the present negotiation. The nurses
are willing to negotiate in the future over the creation of a merit-based
clinical ladder system if it is voluntary and used to augment the
current wage and stepped salary scale, not replace it.
The nurses at MVH strongly support the stepped salary system because
it is fair, and because it rewards longevity of service," Lambos
explained. "The RNs at this institution gave up this benefit for
a time as a sacrifice to help out this institution. We deserve to
have it reinstated as this practice has been part of our contract
for more than 25 years. It is important that nurses are not alone
in their desire to retain this system, as a similar stepped salary
system also exists within the island's school teacher contracts."
"This is an insult to every nurse at this facility who has made countless sacrifices
when this hospital was in need," Lambos said. "We have one of highest costs of
living indexes and the highest housing costs in the entire Commonwealth and we
have been working harder, taking care of more acutely ill patients under more
strenuous conditions in recent years."
Mandatory On-Call in Lieu of Work
Perhaps the most onerous of the hospital's proposals is their demand
for "mandatory call in lieu of work." The hospital wants the right
to force regularly scheduled nurses to go home and be "on call," when
the hospital deems the nurses are not needed. While on call, nurses
would be paid only $8 per hour, which is only a third of their regular
hourly rate. Currently, nurses have the right to volunteer to accept
such an assignment.
Lambos points out that the voluntary system has worked for both the
hospital and the nurses and should continue as is. "The hospital
offers a wide variety of medical services to the island that are
not all cost effective, but are very necessary due to our geographic
isolation. The two major services are Obstetrics (OBS) and Intensive
Care (ICU). If the hospital offers these services to the community,
they must maintain a permanent staff of the highly trained nurses
needed to provide the care, and pay the cost of providing such services.
Acute Care, the medical/surgical care unit, must also maintain a
permanent base staff of RN's despite seasonal variation in patient
population to provide continuity of care to island patients. In the
past, when the ICU and OBS were empty or when Acute Care census was
low, the nurses assigned to these units would float to other areas
that needed additional staff or take voluntary call in lieu of work.
They would voluntarily go home on-call and be available to return
to work if their services were needed. This voluntary system has
saved the hospital a lot of money over the years.
"If we go to the mandatory system, nurses are in danger of losing the basic right
to a guaranteed income, and guaranteed hours of work," Lambos added. "No nurse
would accept such a system, and such a system will prevent this hospital from
recruiting any nurses to work in this facility. Also, we don't think it is in
the best interest of patient care to allow management sole discretion to determine
if and when nurses are not needed to provide care."
Cuts in Medical Insurance and Other Benefits
Other areas of concern are proposals that would give the unilateral
right to management to change our medical insurance plan without
negotiating the benefit language that lessens long established holiday
benefits, reduction in force language changes, and language that
decreases paid time for staff education and hospital committee participation.
"Our question to Kevin Burchill is ‘How does all this help in the effort
to promote recruitment and retention of professional nursing staff?" Lambos asked. "The
bottom line is that it doesn't. While Mr. Burchill talks about using these proposals
to improve recruitment of nurses, every thing he is proposing will destroy our
ability to maintain adequate nurse staffing at this facility and will force many
nurses who work here to reconsider their positions at this hospital."
In response to the current positions by management, Lambos said the
nurses are ready and willing to stand up for what they believe in
and call upon the hospital's trustees to become involved in changing
the hospital's positions in the negotiations.
"If management continues to insist on these onerous proposals, it will be impossible
for us to have any respect for, or confidence in, senior management and the governing
body of the hospital. We will call upon the Board of Trustees to meet with the
nurses, listen to our concerns and to put an end to Kevin Burchill's crusade.
If a strike should occur, it will only be because Kevin Burchill wants a strike
and pushed your nurses out into the street and away from your bedside through
his unwillingness to negotiate in good faith."
Lambos said the nurses are going to the public to assist them in
pressuring the hospital to stop a strike from happening. "The public
knows many members of the nursing staff through community and/or
professional encounters, and therefore they know that we are not
unreasonable or radical people. They know we will explore every viable
option to assure the community that we can honor the Martha's Vineyard
Hospital slogan, "Here For Your Health". However, they need to know
that one option we cannot entertain is accepting the hospital's present
offer. It wouldn't be good for us and it wouldn't be good for the
community." |
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